Volgograd renamed Stalingrad for day as the Second World War battle remembered

The city where Hitler's attack on Russia failed was given its old name back for the day on Saturday, as one of the bloodiest battles of all time was remembered.

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A World War II-era Red Army's T-34-85 tank rolls during a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the Stalingrad Battle, in the city of Volgograd, formerly StalingradPhoto: AFP

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Captured Nazi servicemen stand in front of a damaged building in the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), 20 December 1943Photo: REUTERS

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A man carries flowers as he walks past gravestones of the Red Army soldiers who died in the Battle of Stalingrad during the World War II, at a military cemetery in the Russian village of Rossoshka, some 40 km outside the city of Volgograd, formerly StalingradPhoto: AFP

By Telegraph reporter and agencies in Moscow

12:01PM GMT 02 Feb 2013

The Russian city of Volgograd was renamed Stalingrad for the day on Saturday and pictures of Josef Stalin's face were put on buses, as Russia remembered the epic battle that turned the tide of the Second World War in the city that bore the dictator's name.

President Vladimir Putin was expected for a military parade to mark 70 years since the German surrender after the six-month Battle of Stalingrad, which became a symbol for Russians of patriotic sacrifice and unity.

He will tap a vein of sentiment that harks back to before the collapse of Moscow's Soviet empire. The city was renamed Volgograd after the war when the Communist heirs of the Soviet dictator disowned Stalin as a genocidal tyrant. But the defeat of Hitler remains a source of deep national pride in Russia.

On Friday, television showed Mr Putin speaking to the head of the Orthodox Church about the battle's 70th anniversary: "At the heart of all Russia's victories and achievements are patriotism, faith and strength of spirit," he said. "In World War Two, these true values inspired our people and our army."

He also held a Kremlin reception for veterans of the war. In a gesture to survivors of the great battle and to the patriotism that Putin is trying to rekindle, the city will be referred to as Stalingrad during the official ceremonies, following a local council decision this week.

Posters of Josef Stalin were stuck on buses in the city by admirers of the dictator, without official approval.

On the river Volga, 600 miles south of Moscow, it was Tsaritsyn before the revolution, and was named after Stalin in 1925, when it was transformed into an important industrial centre.

Nikita Khrushchev, his successor as Russian leader, launched a campaign of "de-Stalinisation" afte he took power in 1953, easing repression and erasing the late dictator's name; the "hero city" became Volgograd in 1961.

The battle, however, in which up to two million died, remains immortalised as Stalingrad.

"It was our victory, the people of the Soviet Union, the people of Russia, who won this victory," Volgograd regional governor Sergei Bazhenov said in a television interview. "The most important thing is to maintain this patriotic mood."

For 200 days, Germans and Russians fought hand to hand, street by street and from room to room, battling the winter cold at the end and, for the Germans, starvation too. Surrounded in the ruins, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus defied Hitler's final fight-to-the-death order and surrendered, on February 2, 1943.

The Nazi leader had seen capturing Stalingrad as a prize that would sap Soviet morale, partly because of its symbolic name, and help secure control of oilfields in the Caucasus to fuel his army. After Stalingrad, the Red Army fought its way westward to Berlin, taking the German capital 27 months later.

"Hitler thought that because he had taken Paris in a few days he could take Stalingrad in about five or maybe 10 days," said Gamlet Dallatyan, a veteran of the battle.

"He was wrong. We had strong military leaders," the 92-year-old former soldier said. "I never woke up in the morning thinking we would not win."